Model Consortium Agreements including IPR Conditions

Within the framework of ERA-PG a Work Group on IPR issues of legal and technology transfer experts has prepared three model contracts.

A model consortium agreement for academic transnational research collaborations in the area of plant genomics (First Call 2006 Sub Call A)

A model consortium agreement for public-private transnational research collaborations in the area of plant genomics, especially addressed at the national genomics networks (First Call 2006 Sub Call B)

A model consortium agreement for Second Call 2008

The model contracts are based on the IPR Conditions that the IPR Work Group previously prepared to harmonise the practices between the different countries. The IPR Conditions are mainly based on the IPR rules which are mandatory in FP6 funded projects.

Project partners of the ERA-PG selected projects have to give a consortium agreement in order to get access to the funding granted by the national funding agencies. The agreement should govern the collaborative research project. It should be in line with the national rules of the countries involved and it should fullfil the specific needs of the research by defining rules for access rights and transfer of information and material.

The model contracts, customised to the needs of the ERA-PG programme, have been developed to provide sound solutions to the above in order to help the research consortia. The model contracts contain optional clauses which need to be specified for the project at hand. The funding organisations recommend the grant holders to use the provided models for preparing their consortium agreements.

An overview presentation introduces the Models for Consortium Agreement, and a tutorial provides a hand in using the models.

IPR Conditions

The IPR Conditions have been drafted with the ambition to reflect the spirit of the collaboration carried out in ERA-PG.The goal is to have the basic elements for the collaboration, which are then described and specified in the Consortium Agreement.They serve as guidelines for setting up the rules concerning Intellectual Property and also as a reference document for what conditions have to be applied and which policy has to be followed.